It’s tough enough to change your career direction, but when trying to do it as an expat, it can be overwhelming. An expat is a person living temporarily or permanently in a country other than the upbringing of the person.
It’s obvious that conquering your fears is the first step in this process. After all, you are moving out of your comfort area to face entirely new surroundings. The unknown may intimidate many. The unknown can in some instances, it implies taking a step down the career ladder and landing a lower-level job. When you are faced with challenges such as language barriers, lack of professional connections, and diminished awareness of the sector in which you work, it is possible to lose track of where your career is going.
Whether you’ve just arrived in your desired country for work, or you’re planning on relocating, the primary thing on your mind is getting a job. An expat career change can bring career change challenges to a new level. Read the stories of others expats that have changed their career successfully.
Maria Koripas, Movement Director, Choreographer, Coach & former Director of Dance at Birkbeck University tells her story of not one, but several career changes in the arts industry.
Paola had a successful corporate career in Digital Marketing until the day she felt “absolutely crushed”. She suddenly realised that that kind of life simply did not resonate with her anymore.
Initially, similarly to many other career changers, she dismissed her feelings and went on living the same life for another five years, before gaining some clarity on what she wanted to do next.
This week, for The Career Changers Interviews, we met expat Henrique Martins, that changed his career from Bank Clerk to Online Advertising, after quickly realising that the reality of a local bank was not aligned with his passions. He was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal. With a high school background in Banking, Henrique graduated from college in Marketing Management and started his online advertising career at Google and later with Yahoo, which led him to live in Dublin, Amsterdam and London before moving to Los Angeles in 2016. He’s now a Senior Account Lead at Verizon, managing end-to-end digital advertising campaigns for various brands.
I discovered that I could adapt quickly to new environments and could work with people from different backgrounds while communicating successfully with everyone. Being a multipotentialite allows me to perform a variety of roles throughout the day, and push my boundaries.
For me, what is also incredibly important, and it is also one of my biggest motivations is to set a good example for my children. I don’t want them to stay in a career that doesn’t suit them, just because it is well paid. I wanted to teach them to follow their dreams and to live a good life, full of meaning and accomplishment. The only way to teach them that is to do it myself.
The dance luminary Jurgen Schneider, our master teacher and also a Ballet Master at American Ballet Theatre, told me I was a born teacher. I resented this because I wanted to perform first, then teach. I also thought many teachers I had seen were bitter ex-dancers or bitter dance lovers who never got to perform. I did not want o become like that!
Ann talks about her job as a housekeeper for one of the most exclusive five-star hotels in London. Here she learnt the secrets to provide a five-star experience to hotel’s guests and how to deal with VIP’s requests. She also reveals how the toll of this highly demanding physical job on her body led her to change her job to find an ideal work-life balance.
This week Giovanna, shares her story. She speaks three languages and has a Degree in Communication that helped her to shift her career from Air Hostess to PR Manager. She is an expat, having moved from Italy to London and from London to Paris, where at the moment she lives as a full-time mum.
This week Dorota Zelazny shares her story. Dorota speaks four languages and has a background in insurance and administration. After a career as a prison officer motived by the desire to help others, she realised that her dream was to open her own business, and she went straight for it.
This week Carlo, 40 years old from Italy, shares his story. From a childhood dream of becoming an astronaut to a life as an air pilot, he speaks five languages, has a Political Science degree, and has now moved to a career that provides him the ideal work/life balance.
